Alphabet and Disney on Friday announced that they’ve reached a deal to revive content from ABC and ESPN onto Google’s YouTube TV.
The deal comes after a two-week standoff between the 2 corporations that began on Oct. 31. The stalemate resulted in quite a few live sporting events, including college football games and two Monday Night Football games, being absent from the favored streaming service.
“We’re glad to share that we have reached an agreement with Disney that preserves the worth of our service for our subscribers and future flexibility in our offers,” YouTube said in an announcement. “Subscribers should see channels including ABC, ESPN and FX returning to their service over the course of the day, in addition to any recordings that were previously of their Library. We apologize for the disruption and appreciate our subscribers’ patience as we negotiated on their behalf.”
Disney Entertainment’s co-chairs Alan Bergman and Dana Walden, together with ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro, said in an announcement that said the agreement reflects “how audiences select to observe” entertainment.
“We’re pleased that our networks have been restored in time for fans to enjoy the various great programming options this weekend, including college football,” they said.
Greater than 20 Disney-owned channels were faraway from YouTube TV, which offered its subscribers $20 credits this week because of the dispute. Along with ABC and ESPN, other networks that were unavailable included FX, NatGeo, Disney Channel and Freeform.
The fundamental sticking point between the 2 corporations was the speed Disney charges YouTube TV for its networks. Disney’s most useful channel, ESPN, charges carriage of greater than $10 a month per pay-TV subscriber, a better fee than every other network within the U.S., CNBC previously reported.
It isn’t the primary conflict this yr between YouTube and legacy media.
NBCUniversal content was nearly faraway from YouTube TV before the businesses reached an agreement in October, stopping shows like “Sunday Night Football” and “America’s Got Talent” from being pulled.
YouTube TV also found itself in a standoff with Fox in August that just about resulted in Fox News, Fox Sports and other Fox channels going dark on the service just before the beginning of the faculty football season. The 2 sides were capable of strike a deal to stop a blackout.
YouTube said it has the choice for future program packages with Disney and other partners.
Disney said that access to a number of live and on-demand programming from ESPN Unlimited, which incorporates content from ESPN+ and recent content on its all-inclusive digital service coming later this yr, might be available on YouTube TV to base plan subscribers at no additional cost by the tip of 2026.
Here’s the memo that Disney executives sent to employees:
Team,
We’re pleased to share that we have reached a brand new agreement with YouTube TV, and all of our stations and networks are within the means of being restored to the service.
While this was a difficult moment, it ultimately led to a robust final result for each consumers and for our company, with a deal that recognizes the tremendous value of the high-quality entertainment, sports, and news that fans have come to expect from Disney.
Over the past few years, we have led the way in which in creating progressive deals with key partners –
every one unique, and every designed to acknowledge the complete value of our programming. This recent agreement reflects that very same creativity and commitment to doing what’s best for each our audiences and our business.
We’re happy with the work that went into this deal and grateful to everyone who helped make it occur — especially Sean Breen, Jimmy Zasowski, and the Platform Distribution team for his or her tireless commitment throughout this process.
Thanks all to your patience and professionalism over the past several weeks. As you all know, the media landscape continues to evolve quickly, which makes some of these negotiations complex. What hasn’t modified is our concentrate on the viewer. Our priority is — and can at all times be — delivering the most effective experiences and the most effective value to fans, and we’ll proceed working closely with our partners to make sure we’re fulfilling that mission for our audiences.
We’re incredibly optimistic about what’s ahead and grateful to all of you for continuing to set the usual for entertainment all over the world.
Alan, Dana & Jimmy
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, which owns CNBC. Versant would develop into the brand new parent company of CNBC upon Comcast’s planned spinoff of Versant.
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